Rather than getting a grip of itself and returning to a path of sensibleness and tolerance, President Bharrat Jagdeo's administration has deepened its efforts to choke into silence Guyana's free and independent press.

So, now the state-owned firms, Guyana Power and Light and the Guyana Sugar Corporation, have joined government ministries and agencies in withdrawing advertising from the Stabroek News. Stabroek's sin is that it does what good newspapers do - it has been frank and fearless in mirroring the Guyanese society, which means that it is sometimes fiercely critical of the country's administration. Mr. Jagdeo apparently perceives criticism as inherent hostility towards his administration and the ruling People's Progressive Party.

All this is particularly sad on several levels, but more so for what it reveals about President Jagdeo and for his diminution of the great promise he held out, and in which we revelled, when he assumed the highest office in Guyana.

Indeed, as we have said before in these columns, Mr. Jagdeo, explicitly and otherwise, promised us a relief from the race-based politics that had for too long burdened Guyana. He held out to us, too, the prospect of a democratic engagement - in terms of respect of a people's right for a government of their choice and the encouragement of a discourse, even when it is discomfited, that would be robust and frank.

As it is turning out, Mr. Jagdeo is becoming a worthy inheritor of the mantle of one of his predecessors, Forbes Burnham. He may not have as yet assumed the worst of Mr. Burnham's excesses, but his assault on the free press is classically Burnhamite. And in some respects, Mr. Jagdeo's cynicism is worse. Mr. Burnham never really went out of his way to claim his democratic credentials or a badge as defender of the free press. Mr. Jagdeo has. He has, for instance, signed the Declaration of Chapultepec, which pronounces support for a free press, and which has among its provisions a repudiation of the use of advertising to either punish or reward the press.

Indeed, we repeat our position, that when governments spend money, whether on advertising or other services, it is the people's resources that they utilise; not that of the ruling party or its ministers. Such resources have to be deployed in the interest of the people, not on partisan malice, as is now being done by the Guyana Government.

Hopefully, Mr. Jagdeo will quickly come to the appreciation of this and an understanding that his current behaviour weakens democracy in Guyana - and all that that portends. Maybe his Caribbean Community colleagues should reinforce those home truths when they meet for their summit in St. Vincent, next week.

The leaders, who have all in the past declared their commitment to freedom of the press, must tell Mr. Jagdeo that the region is moving past such aberrant behaviour, and that such nasty attitudes by Guyana leaves a stain on all their houses.

Indeed, they should listen keenly to the arguments of the representatives of Caribbean media, with whom they will engage in St. Vincent and bury those spectres that would haunt press freedom.